GOOD NEWS. 471 of Sobat to me, partly to prevent the constant incursions of the Fashoda men into my territory, and partly to establish a regular post to Kharttim. ‘The steamer would have brought the letters as far as Bor; from there I should have pushed forward three stations to the north, one of which was to have been situated on the lower part of the Bahr-el-Zaraf, where it is navigable all the year, and Sobat would have been the terminus. Thus the post—provided Fashoda still existed— would have arrived at Kharttim in about thirty days, whether the river were closed or open, and we should have had the additional advantage that all necessaries could reach us through these stations, whenever there were obstructions in the river.

Sobat was granted me, the steamer was promised—and in the end we were left in the lurch.

Good news seldom comes alone, and so it has happened this time. I heard next that Rumbek had been successfully evacuated, and that the soldiers and baggage had arrived in Ayak, whence the retreat on Amadi is to be commenced. This station is to be a centre for the defence, but it has lately been greatly endangered, for a number of rebellious Danagla assembled in the little station of Sayadin, and a Sudanese officer, who went against them with some soldiers, was stupid enough to fight and lose a quantity of war material. My Keremallah mission also is in Sayadin, it seems; it only went as far as Boiko, and then returned; now it is in a dilemma. As soon as the soldiers from Ayak arrive at Amadi, and have joined those now there, who amount to about a hundred and fifty, a vigorous attack is to take place. Of still greater importance to us all is the news from Makraka, that the rebels assembled in Kudurma—they had regularly entrenched themselves—have retired and taken the route to Sabi through Gosa, where there is said to have been a sanguinary collision between them and Abdullahi Wod Abd-es-Samat’s men. The reports of this event are so confused that we shall do well to wait for further details. The greatest anarchy seems to have _ prevailed in the Bahr-el-Ghazal province ever since the retirement of poor Lupton Bey.